Sometimes I Dream
by weepingangelofnewnewyork
Summary: Natasha has always had terrible nightmares, but they get worse when she meets Clint. And she can't bring herself to tell him. Clintasha (Clint/Natasha) one-shot.


Terror. Adrenaline. Pain. She had a different nightmare every night. They were all stemmed from her deepest, darkest, most intense fears. She refused to acknowledge her nightmares, even to herself, because fear was a weakness. So, every night, she relived the pain and the torture alone, suspended in panic, drifting anchorless through dark dreams.

It went on for years. Natalia hated them, hated feeling so vulnerable, but they were one of the only things that she was powerless over.

#####

They didn't stop when she was taken in by S.H.I.E.L.D. They worsened. Because, no matter what anyone else thought, Natalia didn't feel safer when they took her in, not even around Clint Barton. When she worked for the Soviet Union, she knew what was expected of her. But with S.H.I.E.L.D., everything was different. They actually trusted her. They didn't chain her up at night, they didn't even put a tracker on her. It made her feel sick. Natalia knew what she was capable of, and she'd never been given such free reign. She had armed guards to watch her at first, of course, but she knew at least eighty-four ways to rid herself of them in under two minutes. And that frightened her.

So the nightmares grew steadily more frequent and more vivid. She became afraid of sleep, and of when she was alone in the dark with no handcuffs, a simple locked door the only barrier between herself and the whole, free world.

#####

Natalia, now Natasha, didn't know what to make of the man who had saved her life. Clint Barton was unlike anyone she had ever met, the only person who saw her as more than an asset. The only person who treated her as an equal.

Natasha knew the definition of trust, but she had never experienced it, so the first time caught her completely off guard.

She and Clint were on a mission in the mountains of Hong Kong, about a year after she'd been taken in by S.H.I.E.L.D. Their target had decided to commit suicide rather than be taken in for questioning, and had jumped off the face of a cliff to his death. But, for some unknown reason, maybe he'd regretted his decision the second after he'd made it, he had reached out and grabbed Natasha's ankle as he fell, pulling her with him. She'd managed to grab onto a jutting slab of rock, but the cliff was to smooth to climb and the rock too small to stand on.

Clint had lowered himself onto a tree that was growing out of the side of the cliff some distance above her, and had swung from it upside-down by his legs, trapeze-style, reaching down to her with both arms, ready to pull her up. Natasha had frozen in panic. She would have to let go of the rock and depend completely on her partner to pull her to safety, dangling hundreds of feet above the ground in thin air, with no means to help herself whatsoever. She would have to make a conscious decision to trust him with her life.

The KGB would have told her to find another way up, the Red Room would have told her to let go and fall to her death before relying on another person so completely.

But Clint Barton told her to grab on, to trust him. And it took all of her willpower, but she did. And he'd saved her life again.

She realized afterwards that she trusted him with more than her life; she trusted him with her past, too. With all of the horrible memories that shaped her into who she was.

For the first time that night, another person entered her nightmares. She dreamed that Clint died, and she was helpless to save him.

It took another five years before she realized that she trusted him with her heart. After that, the nightmares sharpened even more.

#####

 _"Clint!"_ Her heart was in her throat, oxygen pounding in her head as she ran to him. He was lying on the ground, coughing up crimson blood, more of it gushing from a bullet wound in his stomach. She dropped to her knees beside him, and pressed on his stomach, trying to slow the torrent of blood.

"Nat…" he croaked, then paused coughing again.

"Sh-sh." She tried to silence him. "It's okay. I'm here."

"Where were you, Nat?" Hurt, not the physical kind, clouded his eyes. "I was waiting for you. I trusted you. You could have saved me."

His words felt like a stab to the gut. He was right. She could have saved him, but it was too late now. Tears stung her eyes, and Clint's face became blurry.

"I'm so sorry, Clint. I know it was my fault, but hang on, okay? Get better and I'll make it up to you. Just please… don't die," she pleaded.

"Tasha…" His voice was rasping, and he coughed weakly. His mouth moved, straining to speak, but his words were too soft for her to hear.

"It's okay, I'm here," she said over and over, hating the words because they meant nothing. After a while, his breathing finally ceased. Her emotions flooding over , she took his hand and grasped it tightly, as if trying to pull him back to her. But it wasn't enough. She took him in her arms and bent over him, heaving sobs shaking her body as she rocked his slowly back and forth.

Not even torture hurt as much as this, she realized. She could handle torture, but not losing Clint. And that wasn't acceptable. She realized that trust and love were weaknesses. Love wasn't worth the pain of loss.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you," she murmured. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Tears freshened their paths down her grimy face and found their way into Clint's hair.

#####

 _"Natasha."_

Clint.

Natasha's eyes flew open. He was standing next to her bed, and in spite of the darkness, she could see the worry etched on his features. He squeezed her hand, and she realized that she was shaking all over, and the kind of cold sweat brought on by fear was covering her whole body. Warm, sticky tears clung to her cheeks.

"Clint." Her voice was hoarse. She despised that he was seeing her like this, so defenseless and vulnerable. _Love is not worth the pain of loss. Love is a weakness._ She knew that she should let go of his hand, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. It grounded her, but she wanted him to leave for the simple reason that she wanted him to stay.

"What's wrong, Nat?" he asked gently. "You were saying something over and over in Russian. And you were crying and you're all shaky." His hand tightened around hers.

Natasha took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm herself. "I'm fine," she said quietly. "I must have had a bad dream. I don't remember." She wanted to hide the truth because she was putting too much trust in him. The more she let him in, the harder it would be when she had to let him go.

"Don't keep secrets from me, Natasha," said Clint, sitting down beside her. The bed dipped a little from his weight. Natasha looked away, not trusting herself to meet his gaze. She'd been hiding her feelings for years, but since she'd just woken up thinking he was dead, and here he was alive and worried about her and so _close_ , she'd never felt so emotionally compromised. It was all she could to keep herself from wrapping her arms around him, for fear that she would never let go. He made her feel safe.

Clint pulled away a lock of hair that was stuck to the drying tears on her cheek. She closed her eyes, savoring the sensation of the warmth of his hand next to her face.

"Tasha, look at me."

Natasha cautiously opened her eyes. The moon shone brightly into his, and she could see the concern and tenderness that they held. Natasha realized that she was barely holding on to herself, on to her emotions, and that it had been that way for a while. Clint was her anchor, and she'd put far more trust in him than she'd ever realized or intended.

It was too late, there was no way out. She had to face it: she was always going to be compromised when it came to Clint Barton. It had been too long, their trust in each other went too deep for her to pretend otherwise.

"Tasha, I'm here for you," Clint told her seriously. "But if you want me to leave, just say so, okay?"

She realized she couldn't think of a single word to say.


End file.
